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Министерство сельского хозяйства Российской Федерации Федеральное государственное бюджетное образовательное учреждение высшего образования

«Пермская государственная сельскохозяйственная академия имени академика Д. Н. Прянишникова»

М.А. Хлыбова

AСADEMIC WRITING

(Академическое письмо)

Учебное пособие по английскому языку

Пермь

ИПЦ «Прокростъ»

2017

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Введение

Пособие предназначено для магистров и аспирантов сельскохозяйственных вузов, изучающих английский язык для академического общения.

Учебное пособие ориентировано на совершенствование иноязычной коммуникативной компетенции магистров и аспирантов, имеющей своей основной целью развитие навыков и умений в сфере академического и профессионального общения. Пособие направлено на развитие умений строить академическую письменную речь в ситуациях профессионально-делового характера в соответствии с коммуникативными и этическими нормами общения.

Пособие состоит из четырех разделов, каждый из которых включает теоретическую часть, образцы научноэкспериментальных статей из зарубежных периодических изданий и разработанный на их основе комплекс заданий для развития навыков и умений, необходимых для эффективного написания работ разной категории с учетом грамматических, стилистических, жанровых особенностей письменной академической речи.

В приложениях представлены русско-английские лексико-синтаксические конструкции по соответствующим темам, словарь академической лексики, аббревиатуры.

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Unit 1. The features of academic writing

Complexity

Written texts are shorter and have longer, more complex words and phrases. They have more noun-based phrases, more nominalisations, and more lexical variation. Written language is grammatically more complex than spoken language. It has more subordinate clauses, more long sequences of prepositional phrases, more attributive adjectives and more passives than spoken language.

Formality

Academic writing is relatively formal. In general this means that in an essay you should avoid colloquial words and expressions. Academic writing avoids informal two-word verbs. This is done by replacing them with a more formal equivalent - bring up / raise, set up / establish.

Precision

In academic writing, facts and figures are given precisely. In academic writing you need to be precise when you use information, dates or figures. Do not use «a lot of people» when you can say «50 million people».

For example: Chemists had attempted to synthesize quinine for the previous hundred years but all they had achieved was to discover the extreme complexity of the problem.

The volatile oily liquid beta-chloro-beta-ethyl sulphide was first synthesized in 1854, and in 1887 it was reported to produce blisters if it touched the skin. It was called mustard gas and was used at Ypres in 19I7, when it caused many thousands of casualties.

Objectivity

This means that the main emphasis should be on the information that you want to give and the arguments you want to make, rather than you. This is related to the basic nature of

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academic study and academic writing, in particular. Nobody really wants to know what you «think» or «believe». They want to know what you have studied and learned and how this has led you to your various conclusions. The thoughts and beliefs should be based on your lectures, reading, discussion and research and it is important to make this clear.

In general, avoid words like «I», «me», «myself». A reader will normally assume that any idea not referenced is your own. It is therefore unnecessary to make this explicit. Don't write: «In my opinion, this a very interesting study». Write: «This is a very interesting study».

Accuracy

Academic writing uses vocabulary accurately. Most subjects have words with narrow specific meanings. Linguistics distinguishes clearly between «phonetics» and «phonemics»; general English does not. Choose the correct word, for example, «meeting», «assembly», «gathering» or «conference». You also need to be accurate in your use of grammar.

Responsibility

In academic writing you must be responsible for, and must be able to provide evidence and justification for, any claims you make. You are also responsible for demonstrating an understanding of any source texts you use. This is done by paraphrasing and summarizing what you read and acknowledging the source of this information or ideas by a system of citation.

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1) Analyze the following two extracts in terms of style. Which one has a formal, academic style? Identify the features of acceptable and unacceptable academic style used in the extracts.

1.Contact with neighbouring people must have been limited prior to European settlement in Australia in 1788. Melanesians from New Guinea and the islands of Torres Strait are known to have visited the northern shores, especially Cape York Peninsula. The Indonesians frequently visited Arnhem Land and the northwest of Western Australia to collect pearl and tortoise shell. As early as 1803, Matthew Flinders documented the size and frequency of Indonesian expeditions. He made contact with several ships while he was charting the coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria.

2.I think the first Europeans came to live in Australia around 1788. I don’t know too much about how many Aborigines there were at the time but everyone says there must have been around 300 000 altogether. They say they came here 40 000 years ago when Java was joined to Asia and then they island hopped to New Guinea and then on to Australia. Anyway, when the Europeans came the Aborigines were split up into about 500 tribes. About a third of them lived in Queensland, probably along the coast. It looks like only about 18 000 lived in the central deserts of SA and WA.

2) Read the following pairs of sentences and decide which is more objective.

1. a) Brown's excellent account of the UK economic situation has been widely distributed.

b) Brown's account of the UK economic situation, which is regarded by many to be well-researched and accurate,

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has been widely distributed.

2.a) The student's excellent exam results enabled her to apply for a postgraduate course.

b)The student is more agreeable than most of those on the postgraduate course.

3.a) The results are astonishing.

b)The results were unexpected and may potentially change our thinking on this topic.

3) Choose words from the box to replace the informal twoword verb with a more formal equivalent.

1.A primary education system was set up throughout Ireland as early as 1831.

2.This will cut down the amount of drug required and so the cost of treatment.

3.The material amenities of life have gone up in Western society.

4.Thus, he should have looked into how the patient has coped previously.

5.In 1947 the Treasury brought up the question of excluding South Africa (and India) from the sterling area.

6.Western scholars gradually turned out a corpus of translations from the Arabic and studies of Islam.

7.Discussion of the outcome of experiments that have used this method will be put off until Chapter 7.

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4) Find the most suitable Russian equivalents for the following academic English word combinations:

-the problem requires a detailed study

-thus the core of the problem is

-to provide an overview and assessment

-to report new findings concerning

-to present an extensive treatment of

-to introduce rigorous examination of

-to comprise a theoretical overview of

-to be a tool for theoretical and numerical investigation

-to be of interest to researches in other fields of study

-there are different approaches to the solution of the problem.

5) Match the words in the boxes on the left with the words on the right.

6) Match the beginning of each sentence with the most appropriate ending.

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